“I learned how to knit when I was six,” says Debbie Stoller. “But it was another 30 years before I actually liked it.”
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Stoller, who’s 41 now, tried a few more times in her 20s and 30s–once under the tutelage of her grandmother in the Netherlands–but ended up with little more than a closet full of wool and one unfinished sleeve. She got a doctorate in psychology from Yale, and in 1993 she cofounded the New York-based feminist magazine Bust, of which she’s still editor and publisher. Then, in 1999, Stoller embarked on a cross-country tour to promote the anthology The Bust Guide to the New Girl Order. Faced with the prospect of days alone on a train (she hates to fly), she packed up books, CDs, cards, a laptop, and that long-abandoned sweater. “Finally, finally, it clicked,” she says. By the time she arrived on the west coast, the sweater was done, and she was hooked.
To this end–and also “so I could have a social life”–Stoller started a knitting group. The ten women who showed up for the first Stitch ‘n Bitch meeting at an East Village cafe were at varying skill levels, but mostly under 40 and fairly new to the craft. Nowadays there are similar groups all over the country. (Chicago Stitch ‘n Bitch claims about 650 members, though nowhere near that many ever show up at a single meeting.)
